Snakes and Ladders
by the-ramen-fiend
Summary: Pre-Mass. One-Shot. Within a contemplative game of snakes and ladders, Sasuke reveals his softer side to his intrigued older brother.


A little bit of fluffy crap. Got the idea of doing something like this when I played snakes and ladders with my little cousin the other day lol Epic game.

Don't know why I put the festival in there, I just felt the need to start it on the "eve" of something or other.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto.

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_Snakes_ _and Ladders_

Late into the eve of the Tanabata festival, two Uchiha brothers, both already coiled around the cruel fingers of Fate, sat opposite each other beside the lake. A small board was placed between their hunched, kneeling figures; two distant forms silhouetted against a burning summer sky and the crystalline gleam of the lake below. The elder of the two seemed calm and docile, a small smile lighting his features as the fierce sunset danced across the lake like a swarm of fireflies. The younger brother sat tensely, his brow fixed in deep concentration; eyes gripped to the board with such dexterity the elder brother could not make any other choice. He would play to lose.

"It's your turn Sasuke," Itachi said quietly, awaiting his brother's doe-eyed gaze as the little boy tore his focus from the board.

Sasuke pouted; the outcome seemed useless. Itachi only needed to land a "five" on the die, and he would win. The smaller child had encountered a turbulent battle upon this board. Three times his counter had landed on a snake, only once on a ladder. He was twenty-odd spaces away from the last square, and his chances appeared bleak. Itachi, on the other hand, had managed to use two ladders, and landed on no snakes at all. Everything seemed deeply unfair to little Sasuke. He was so used to Itachi winning, winning in every endeavour the older child ventured.

"You're going to win," Sasuke said grumpily, scowling, looking for just a second far too old for such a young person. He tossed the tiny cube with painful resolution onto the harlequin board. "You _always _win,"

Itachi said nothing, knowing that his brother was on the brink of a frustrated tantrum. His eyes watched the boy, arms folded across his tiny chest, face downcast to the green of the grass. A pang of sickness crawled into the pit of Itachi's chest; guilt sickness. His brother was so cold, too cold, just like he had been. Uchiha children were only taught to stoke the fire of their souls when in the heat of battle, or in the midst of the trials of self-improvement. In his own way, although it was only a meaningless game of snakes and ladders, Sasuke was fighting his own form of battle, excelling in his self-improvement. He was heated in the presence of Itachi, but numb and indifferent to all else.

That was what Fugaku saw in Sasuke; blindness, blindness Itachi would never have. The heir to the clan was outspoken, but quiet, showing his objection through his actions. For years he behaved in the way in which he was expected to, submitting from shock after witnessing the bloody, heart-piercing horrors of war. Not matter what, he had instilled in himself a sense of pacifism, even aged only thirteen. As against the odds as this occurrence may be, for a child to be born into the name of Uchiha and "prodigy", Itachi could not be content with himself, or with the world, if he were unable to question the teachings that sought to make him a living legend. That was not his goal, not his form of selflessness. It was the courage his father viewed as insubordination, as betrayal, as treason to their meaningless clan embellished in half-forgotten glory.

The die had not yet landed; Sasuke did not seem to be watching, resigning himself to the inevitable conclusion, the order of his world. Itachi smirked, knowing everything was too easy. His hand whipped out faster than the eye could register, and the small wooden shape clattered onto the board, a new face of the cube determining the sequence of the game.

The face showed "four", and Itachi smirked behind his quiet, collected exterior. He observed as Sasuke curled his fingertips around the counter, moving it towards the desired square. As he placed the piece of painted wood beneath the legs of a ladder, surprised delight flashed along his body like a shock of lightening. His face lifted into a determined smile, his eyes brightening like big black diamonds. The ladder led to the fabled finish, the winning square. The little boy blinked in pleasant amazement for a short moment, until his eyes met Itachi's.

Itachi, although inwardly pleased, eyed the board with a keen awareness that made Sasuke question himself as the winner, the triumphant sibling. He stared down at the game, the ladders that elevate and the snakes that relegate. He did not understand the fuss, the tension clouding the air between him and his brother. His head shot up, ready to argue. However, instead of stirring up a terse little tantrum, Sasuke jumped with surprise as Itachi's fingers poked at his forehead.

"Hey, sto-!" His hands tried to swat his brother away, but instead Itachi placed one hand on the crown of his head and much to Sasuke's annoyance, ruffled his hair.

"Forgive me Sasuke," Itachi smiled, his face warmed by the smouldering sun. "But that will be the last time we play snakes and ladders,"

"Huh, but I won!" The younger child pleaded, eyes screwed closed, his hands gripping his brother's arm as he struggled to free himself from the terrors of Itachi's hand.

"Yes," Itachi said, continuing to ruffle Sasuke's soft coal-black hair. "And that means I have no more to teach you,"

His hand released its grip, and Sasuke half-tumbled back on his haunches from the dizziness.

"Hmmm?" He seemed confused, a little unsure and scared; who else would he have to play snakes and ladders with?

Itachi sat cross-legged, his gaze drifting over the silken surface of the Uchiha Lake, its waters ablaze with all the contours of an inferno. It almost appeared like lava more than water, its stillness betraying this impression.

"You should play it with friends from the Academy," Itachi's voice was more direct than suggestive. He knew Sasuke had little friends at the Academy; his Uchiha reasoning and presumed superiority was no virtue needed to make friends. Once again, Sasuke appeared too cold when not bathed in the shadow of Itachi.

Itachi's suspicions were proven correct as Sasuke sat in awkward stillness. He looked at his brother confused, as if the thought were ridiculous.

"Aren't there any other children willing to play at all?" Itachi's eyebrows raised. "None?"

Sasuke shrugged slightly, indifferent, having forgotten the game, and sat cross-legged as Itachi did, eyes wandering the surface of the dazzling water. "I guess there are…"

Itachi caught the rumble of words on the softness of the wind. Little Sasuke's face was pouting again.

"There's one boy in my class…" He began, but appeared torn as to whether or not he should voice his thoughts.

"Just one?" Itachi said, hoping to prompt him. If he controlled anything, it was the manipulation of his brother's actions, his words like a puppeteer; for he knew Sasuke viewed him as both a rival for his parents' affection and his supreme role model. Sasuke could not help but be in awe of his older sibling.

He glanced up, nervous. "Yeah… only one. He doesn't have many friends, people ignore him, even all the other parents, and he always sits alone. I've never seen his mum or dad come to meet him from the Academy,"

Itachi's eyes whipped to his younger brother's face, the deep tint of the boy's eyes was startling, empathetic. It was an expression Itachi rarely saw on the faces of his kinsmen, even the young ones.

"I don't think he has a mum or dad…" Sasuke, to Itachi's astonishment, continued with his reverie. "There's something weird about him, really weird. The parents treat him like he's always sick with chickenpox,"

"What's his name?" Itachi asked, although he had already formulated that answer from the evidence provided.

"Uzumaki Naruto- everything is so strange about him, even his name!" Sasuke announced, seemingly flummoxed by the mysterious child in his class. "There's no Uzumaki family in the village. He's like, jinxed or something…"

Itachi pondered these words; he found it highly ironic that a member of the Uchiha family would be the only child to mentally hold a hand out to the child that harboured the Kyuubi.

"Perhaps you should make friends with him, and then he wouldn't seem so weird any more?" Itachi posed the suggestion, and his little brother mused on this prospect.

"Even if I did, I don't think he likes me,"

"Why is that?"

Sasuke sat quietly, pondering, watching the fruit bats skim across the tops of the lush Konoha treetops.

"Well," He began, "He always stares at me like he wants to punch me when I hit all the targets correctly with shuriken, or when all the stupid girls follow me around, or when I get full marks on my report… He just looks really angry, like he hates me,"

Itachi smiled into the sunset. He has an interesting feeling tingle through his bones, a warmth in the pit of his stomach; for once an optimistic thought. He knew the child Sasuke spoke of, the child with striking blond hair and electric blue eyes that were always searching, pleading for attention. He could see them both, Sasuke with his pale majesty against Naruto's brash brightness. Itachi was glad to have seen a glimmer of empathy within his brother. It was a refreshing change from the gloom of the clan and its predetermined destiny. It made the elder sibling just smile to himself, happily, and loose his senses to the fresh scents of wisteria and jasmine clinging to the evening breeze.

The brothers watched the sun as it descended below the hills of trees that cloaked the Leaf Village in secrecy, as it spilled the light like paint across the vast, pristine lake. Occasionally, a prized carp would leap from the depths into air, catching dragonflies with its perpetually open mouth.

They remained there until their mother called them to supper, when the world was slipping into dusk, just as their father had arrived home. Before Sasuke was given a chance to run and greet his father with the news of defeating Itachi in snakes and ladders, the elder Uchiha stopped him.

"Sasuke,"

The younger gazed up through his long, velvet eyelashes. "Hnn?"

Itachi crouched low so only they could hear the words of one another. "Maybe, when you write your wishes tomorrow, at the festival, you should consider writing one for Uzumaki Naruto,"

Sasuke watched his brother perplexed, as if he were thinking, _Why would I do that? He has his own wishes to use. _Itachi did not ask him whether he did or not in the end. Itachi had not been around that the next day, as he was deployed on a mission. Sasuke had never brought up the subject again, and both he and Itachi would forget the exchange for many years to come.

However, the thought was rekindled years into the future, as Sasuke screamed his brother's name in fury, warning a clueless Naruto against impending danger. He had witnessed the anger of Naruto, the flaring of the Kyuubi chakra, as Sasuke lay in a battered heap on the floor of that cheap hotel corridor, his body soon to be numbed and devastated by a raging Tsukuyomi. They were not simply comrades. There was something deeper, a snarling friendship, a balance that would bring ruin to them both if it were tarnished.

A small smirk graced his features as he remembered.

_I'm never wrong, _Itachi mused to himself, one day after the incident, his eyes blurring already as they surveyed the splendour of a crackling sunset, so similar to that same night, the last time the two brothers ever played a game of snakes and ladders.

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Cheers m'dears!

My first oneshot!

Whacha think?

All those concerning chapters for: Chasing the Moon and Abraxas. I wrote a 10,000 word chapter for CtM, then I realised it was shite, completely wrong and inconsistent so scrapped it. ;s

Abraxas chappy two is _almost _done. I just felt the urge to write this. Only took me 1hr 50mins O.O!


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